Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon

Subject: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:48 am

I just had to bring this fantastic news about a member at Adventure Gamers Forums. The members screen name is Winterfury and they are the first one to create a fix for the missing text for Dark Side of the Moon running in XP. After all these years of people trying to figure out why this game would run beautifully in XP except for the missing text which renders the game unplayable a fix is created. I am thrilled for Winterfury and Kudos to them. Now gamers everywhere can now enjoy this classic game without the need for an older computer or have the know how to use Virtual PC.

2. Open the folder where you installed the game, then open 'bin' folder and put the extracted file in there. If, for example, the path for your installed game is 'CProgram Files\SouthPeak Interactive\DSOM', you should put the extracted file (riched32.dll) in the folder 'CProgram Files\SouthPeak Interactive\DSOM\bin'

3. Run the game and tell me if it works for you.

Quote :

I'll provide some details in case anyone is interested. The common belief is that the problem with the missing text in DSOM is caused by the game being unable to read text or some files not installed properly. I've run the game in the debugger and found out that it is not really the case - the text is actually there in memory while the game is running, it's just that for some reason it's not showing up. While examining the game in the debugger, I've also found out that DSOM handles text in Rich Text format and uses Microsoft Rich Edit control. Up till now there are several versions of Rich Edit and the newer ones, according to Microsoft, are supposed to be backward compatible with the older ones, but in reality it’s only true up to some degree. Now, different Rich Edit versions (read: different DLLs) are distributed with different versions of Windows. Rich Edit 1.0 (riched32.dll) is included in Windows 95. Windows 98 includes both Rich Edit 1.0 and Rich Edit 2.0 (riched32.dll and riched20.dll accordingly) and Windows XP includes Rich Edit 3.0 (its corresponding DLL is confusingly named riched20.dll) and Rich Edit 1.0 emulator (riched32.dll, which is in fact a thin wrapper around riched20.dll). DSOM loads riched32.dll, i.e. uses Rich Edit 1.0 (which figures, since the game was made for Windows 95.) I suspected that there might be an incompatibility between the Rich Edit 1.0 which the game was programmed with in mind and the emulator provided by the recent versions of Windows. So I copied the riched32.dll from my Windows 98 distribution to the game folder where there other DLLs that depend on it and you know the rest.

Also, there are three different versions of riched32.dll (can you imagine that) and only one of them (with the version number 4.0.993.4) is redistributable. Fortunately, the one that is also happens to be just the one that is required by the game.

The bottom line is that Microsoft is to blame for breaking compatibility and creating this mess

EDIT 3/21/11

WinterFury has developed an addition fix for those who had a little trouble getting the game to run and had to disable video acceleration...

Quote :

For those of you who have to disable video acceleration to make DSOM work, I've made a small patch which forces the game to use hardware emulation only, preventing it from using any hardware-supported features. The result should be exactly the same as disabling hardware acceleration, only the patch won't affect any global settings in your system (so you don't have to restore anything after playing the game).

The patched game dll is in this archive . Open your DSOM\Bin folder, find the file named xvideoio.dll and make a backup copy of it. Then copy the patched xvideoio.dll from the downloaded archive to DSOM\Bin

I recommend you use the patch only if the game doesn't work properly on your system unless hardware acceleration is disabled completely. Don't use it otherwise.

Last edited by GreyFuss on Tue Mar 22, 2011 4:00 am; edited 2 times in total

hatshepsutAdventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 3922Reputation : 3Join date : 2009-12-13

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 5:16 am

That is good news for people wanting to play the game on XP. Thanks GreyFuss for the information.

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:16 pm

Thanks GreyFuss. That's useful info..

_________________An Adventurer's strength flows from the Point'n'Click Force.But beware The Dark Side my friend.Anger,rage,aggression.The dark side of the gaming Force are they.Easily they flow,quick to join you in a fight.If once you start down the dark path of RPGs, Action-Adventures or . . eek! . . Casual Games (brrr!),forever will it dominate your destiny.Consume you it will,as it did Ethel,of whom we dare not speak for fear of instant expulsion from our true faith of Point'n'Click.

winfreyDaredevil Pioneer

Posts : 527Reputation : 0Join date : 2009-12-13Location : Here

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 2:46 pm

Thanks GreyFuss

GreyFussAdventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 1948Reputation : 0Join date : 2009-12-13Location : Iron Age

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Tue Mar 22, 2011 1:43 am

WinterFury has developed an addition fix for those who had a little trouble getting the game to run and had to disable video acceleration...

Quote :

For those of you who have to disable video acceleration to make DSOM work, I've made a small patch which forces the game to use hardware emulation only, preventing it from using any hardware-supported features. The result should be exactly the same as disabling hardware acceleration, only the patch won't affect any global settings in your system (so you don't have to restore anything after playing the game).

The patched game dll is in this archive . Open your DSOM\Bin folder, find the file named xvideoio.dll and make a backup copy of it. Then copy the patched xvideoio.dll from the downloaded archive to DSOM\Bin

I recommend you use the patch only if the game doesn't work properly on your system unless hardware acceleration is disabled completely. Don't use it otherwise.

hatshepsutAdventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 3922Reputation : 3Join date : 2009-12-13

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:05 pm

Thank you for the link GreyFuss. Now everyone who couldn't play Dark Side of the Moon should be able to play and enjoy the game.

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:01 pm

I don't think I ever heard of Dark Side of the Moon, GreyFuss, I was thinking it was one of the Tex Murphy games until I just now realized I was getting it mixed up with Under a Killing Moon. Easy enough mistake to make, all things considered.

GreyFussAdventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 1948Reputation : 0Join date : 2009-12-13Location : Iron Age

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:48 pm

Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:24 am

I recall when I played Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within back in 1995 or 1996, I had to do quite a bit of disc swapping for it. But that was back when I had a lot more patience to play games than I do now. Of course, they were more fun back then too. Less technology, but more adventure!

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Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon